


The Weekend

by fleurlb



Category: Fandom: Lemonworld - The National (Song)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-31 07:06:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3968953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurlb/pseuds/fleurlb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Frank receives an invitation from a mysterious stranger and visits her and her sister.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Weekend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [morganya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganya/gifts).



> Thank you for the opportunity to imagine a strange and wonderful world. Any mistakes are mine, and the song is used for inspiration purposes only.

_June, 1967_

Frank pushes through the crowded club, blinded by the blinking lights and dizzy from the smoke that blankets the room like a haze on an August day. All he wants is to get a drink at the bar and catch his breath. He doesn't know why he keeps coming to these places when his comrades all pair up with generically pretty girls while he stands awkwardly to the side, not all that different from himself at age 12. Or 15. or 17. He'd expected his 20s to be different.

He reaches the bar and fights the urge to cling to it like a shipwreck survivor. As he brushes shaggy hair out of his eyes, he sees a girl at the end of the bar smile at him. Her blonde hair is woven with daisies, and her dark dress with its long tailored sleeves seems slightly out of place in the Greenwich Village club. 

The bartender shuffles over to take his order, and when Frank looks up again, the girl is gone. He shrugs off his disappointment with a slug of tepid beer and wonders how long much longer he should stay out to maintain the illusion that he's sociable. A hand on the small of his back nearly causes him to jump.

“I'm Daisy,” says the girl as she sidled up next to him.

“I'm Frank,” he replies, hoping his smile isn't dusty from underuse. 

“I can't stay, I shouldn't even be here right now. It's too late. But please, come to our garden party tomorrow.” She presses a small pink card into his hand before slipping into the crowd without waiting to hear his response. The card, printed in elegant letters on crisp, heavy stock lists a time, place, and small delicate map to a place that has to be at least a two hour drive outside the city. 

Frank doesn't dare fold the card, irrationally afraid that the desecration would cause the welcoming letters to vanish. He has a car, money for gas, and a whole empty Saturday stretched in front of him. What does he have to lose?

\---//---

The drive out of the city into the sprawling countryside is more relaxing than Frank expected. He feels like a balloon let go into the open air, giddy with freedom and adventure as he floats away from everything he's ever known. The roads get smaller until he's finally on a one-lane gravel lane that has a riot of dandelions growing up the middle of it.

The lane curves around to finally reveal the house, an imposing brick Victorian sulking behind a copse of leafy trees. Ivy climbs and chokes its way around the house, barely allowing the windows to peek out. Frank parks the car and climbs the stairs to ring the bell, wincing as the sound thunders through what very well could be an empty house. He panics, wondering if this is all an elaborate prank. If this is a party, where are the other guests?

The door swings open, and Daisy's smile evaporates all his fears. Her flowered dress is boxy and ends in a fringe skirt that's at least four inches longer than they're wearing them in the Village these days. A scarf is knotted jauntily at her neck, and he, in his jeans and plain white button-down, suddenly feels underdressed. 

“Come in, Frank. I'm so delighted you could make it. I hope the journey wasn't too difficult.” She beckons him into the dark and musty house. 

He follows her into a den where all the walls except one are lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. A couch occupies most of the floor space and faces a flickering television set. Lounging on the couch is another girl, who has long dark hair that fans out over the arm of the couch. 

“Pamela, don't be rude to our caller. This is Frank and he's come a long way to spend some time with us.”

“Charmed, I'm sure,” replies Pamela, barely shifting her gaze from the television screen. It's a special news report that shows fleets of helicopters disgorging young men into tall grass. Daisy takes a seat next to her sister, nearly curling up on top of her. 

Frank looks around for a place to sit, but the couch is the only furniture in the room. He perches on the arm of the couch, precarious and uncomfortable. 

“I'm so happy for the invitation. I needed to get out of the city.” The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them, and he knows they're the most uncool thing he could ever say. But Daisy flushes with delight, and Pamela ignores him. 

Daisy's smile is wistful and shy, but then her attention is distracted by the television, where another flag-draped coffin is added to a warehouse that seems full of them.

“Isn't it a terrible thing? To die so far away from home.” Daisy shudders and turns to Frank. “I hope you don't get drafted.”

“I'm a sophomore at Columbia, so I'll have a few years before it's an issue. The war should be over before I need to worry about it.” He doesn't tell them about his Plan B, concientious objection, which he learned about at a Quaker meeting, because he still doesn't understand how he found himself at a Quaker meeting. 

“It'll take a better war to kill a college boy like you? Is that your plan?” asks Pamela, a lazy undercurrent of cruelty circling just under her casual tone. 

“Pammy, be nice,” admonishes Daisy, sitting up as if to put some distance between her and her sister's riptide of cattiness. 

“I've got a cousin over there. Or maybe he's a second cousin. I'd need a scorecard to figure out my mom's giant Irish family.”

“Cousins of cousins of cousins. Does it even make a difference if we're all removed?” Pamela narrows her eyes.

“You know,” said Daisy, dragging her sister up by the arm. “We really need to be getting ready for the party. Frank, we'll meet you in the garden. It's through those doors.”

He looks over to where she's pointing to imposing French doors with thick velvet curtains over the floor-to-ceiling windows. The knob is antique and ornate and requires a fair amount of jiggling and finesse before it finally gives way. Frank feels like he might be the first person in years who has opened the doors, and the thin veil of dust that billows up bolsters his suspicion.

Frank sits uncomfortably on the wrought iron garden furniture as an army of bees attacks the pollen in the flowers that surround the stone patio. An intricate trellis fences in the patio and arches across above his head, a canopy of sweet-smelling flowers on enticing vines. 

Frank loses track of time amid the buzzing bees and the gradually cooling air. He feels like he's in a walled garden on a fancy English estate and imagines butlers and ladies-in-waiting and fringed parasols like something out of an Impressionist painting. 

Impressions. It's a word that makes him think of an imprint, like the pressings that he and his brother used to do with the silly putty and the funny papers. Daisy, for sure, has left an impression on him. He's anxious to spend time with Daisy, whose sweet open face is an invitation to spill all his secrets and then invent more just to keep her interested. 

As eager as he is to see Daisy, he's even more frightened of Pamela, with her sour face and sharp tongue. Had Pamela offered him the invitation, he'd've lit it on fire the second she was out of sight. He can only hope that she's distracted by other guests as the party gets into full swing. 

The doors open, and Daisy comes out carrying a silver tray with fancy glasses that are filled to the brim with an impossibly yellow concoction. She's changed into a flower-printed sun dress that swirls around her kneees and gives the impression that she's floating. 

Pamela is right behind her, carrying a large pitcher. She's also changed into an incongruously black dress with a starchy white collar. She reminds Frank of a nun, chaste and severe, and he gratefully takes a drink from Daisy and gulps it down to cover the chuckle that wants to escape from his throat. The drink is sweet, impossibly so, with a tart finish that makes him want to drink more. 

“It's a Lemon Whirl,” explains Daisy with a shy smile. “Pamela invented them one weekend when Mommy and Daddy were away.”

“Lemonade, vodka, and some lemon juice just to keep it from being too sweet,” says Pamela, her frown suggesting that sweetness is to be avoided at all costs.

“You definitely wouldn't want that. It's perfect.” Frank accepts a refill from Pamela's pitcher. The girls sip their drinks demurely, and the alcohol helps smooth the conversation. Even Pamela smiles once or twice, and Frank is pleased, rather than dismayed, when it dawns on him that he is the party. 

The evening blurs into a pleasant scrim of lemonade and vodka, giggles and benign flirtation until Frank realizes that the only light on the patio is coming from the moon, a nearly full apparatition that's peeking through the trellis overhead. He tries to pull himself together to make his exit, but can't manage it.

“I'm too tired to drive anywhere... anyway... right now, do you care if I stay?” he asks, sure that both Emily Post and his mother would be horrified, and he can't imagine that Pamela will acquiese to his clumsy request for lodging. 

A look passes between the sister, wordless and indecipherable. Pamela shrugs one shoulder, and Daisy smiles, but before she can say anything, Pamela shoots her a cross look, but it's not enough to dampen Daisy's enthusiasm.

“Of course you can. We have space in our room.”

\-------

Their room is in the corner with the turret, the windows opened a crack to let a wisp of stuffy hot air in. Two single beds are aligned in the center of the room with a narrow space between them. He is ushered toward the bed that's closer to the window, and the sisters give him a few minutes alone in the room. He wonders why they seem to think it's scandalous to see a man take off his pants but are perfectly fine with sharing a room with a man who is only wearing boxers.

He's in bed, tucked under the sheet in deference to their modesty. The girls say goodnight to him then curl up together in the other bed. He hears their breathing slow nearly immediately and rolls onto his side to look at them. Their nightgowns are pink and frilly, and in the dark room, it's impossible to tell where one nightgown ends and the other begins. He thinks it should be sexy and transgressive, sisters sharing a bed in lacy nightgowns, but they remind him of puppies sleeping in a pile, which is the least sexy thing he can think of.

He rolls over onto his back and holds tight to that image, not wanting to become aroused with such a narrow space between them. Sleep catches him and drags him under, and his dreams unspool quickly, racy images of bodies and soft kisses, suprise hands touching him in unexpected places and lapses of propriety that would make even a Greenwich Village girl blush. 

He twists and tangles himself in the sheets, then surfaces with a gasp. He finds a wet wash cloth on his forehead and another pair on his wrists, their clammy dampness making the heat and humidity in the room nearly bearable. He glances over at the other bed, but the sisters sleep unperterbed, and he wonders how they tended to him so gently and silently before sleep drags him down again.

\-------

In the morning, he wakes in an empty room and wanders downstairs to find Daisy in the kitchen. Her smile dazzles and relaxes him, until she speaks.

“You had impure dreams last night.”

His cheeks burn and her eyes dance with knowledge that shames him. Somehow, he's sure that she knows every detail of his dreams, the dreams that he only remembers as a pleasant and alluring blur.

She steps forward until she's right in front of him, her hand on his chest, light as a butterfly. “I would. You know I would...indulge you.” Her own cheeks redden and she looks away.

Frank stands still and closes his eyes, willing the moment to stretch into infinity until all that's left in the world is him and this beautiful woman. Her sigh breaks the spell, and he opens his eyes to find that she's taken several steps back and is now leaning against the counter.

“But Pammy. She said I can't. She said that I shouldn't have invited you at all.”

“I'm sorry,” he says, meaning it and so much more. “I'll go. I can leave now.”

Daisy laughs, the sound like a silver bell in an empty cathedral. “But then you'd miss the pool party.”

\-------

The swimming pools is a short walk from the house, through lovingly tended flower gardens. The pools is unlike anything Frank has ever seen – it's like a pool inside a greenhouse, the glass windows so clear that they might as well be invisible. Or gone. The pool is surrounded by a grass path, flower beds, and lemon trees. Daisy explains that her mother wanted a pool with all of the beauty of an outdoor tropical lake and all the convenience of an indoor gymnasium. 

Frank and Daisy take to the water, chasing each other around with all the grace and subtlety of a couple of school kids while Pamela sulks on a chaise lounge. Frank and Daisy surface only to sip Lemon Whirls and trade flirty comments. Frank feels free, even as he's contained by both water and glass. 

Time loses all meaning and they drag themselves from the water only when their limbs are rubbery jelly. They sit on a patch of grass between Pamela and a flower bed. Daisy picks her namesake flower and weaves them into a necklace while Frank lies flat on the grass. A feeling swells in his chest, nameless and hopeful.

“I could die here, a happy man,” he thinks.

“And spend eternity with us? That would be torture,” says Pamela, earning a kick from her sister. 

Frank's surprised that he spoke and thinks perhaps he's drunk too much during the swimming, but he's too relaxed to care. “Then we could say that we invented a summer-loving-torture-party.”

Daisy laughs, but Pamela is unamused. Frank sits up to look at her, to finally ask her what her problem is, but she grabs his hand and drags him over to the pool. They land together in the water with a tremendous splash, the water cold on his sun-warmed skin. 

He feels the breath knocked out of him, but he finds that he does not want to struggle. He allows himself to be pulled down, further and further, deeper than seems possible, as darkness gathers at the edges of his vision and absolute calm overwhelms him.

\-------

When his eyes next open, he's groggy and his mouth is full of sandpaper. He's clinging to a hard circle, and he struggles to piece together his surroundings. He sits up and feels hot vinyl behind him. A crick in his neck confirms that he's been slumped over his car's steering wheel at an awkward angle.

He looks up, puzzled to see the craggy face of an elderly mechanic, and he slowly rolls down his window.

“Pump your gas for you, son? Apologies, we open late on Mondays. How long you been sitting here anyway?”

Frank doesn't tell the man what an excellent question that is. He doesn't trust his voice to work. Instead, he nods and gets out of the car to stretch.

“You're not from around here.” The man states the obvious slowly, like he has all the time in the world as he pumps gas into the car.

“No, I live in the city. Just up visiting some friends. What can you tell me about that brick house up the road? The mansion?”

The man returns the gas nozzle to the pump and pulls out a stained rag to wipe his hands. 

“The Campbell place? Must be a ruin by now. No one's lived there for decades. Since those poor girls died.”

Frank covers his surprise with a cough, which the man takes as encouragement to continue.

“What a pity that was. High school girls, sisters, barely a year between them when they were caught in a fire in a speakeasy cellar in Manhattan, must've been 1922 or '23. I went to school with them. That Pamela was a firecracker – was probably her idea to go there in the first place. And Daisy. Every boy in school was sweet on her.”

Frank feels his stomach lurch, doubt bubbling up as he wonders what he's smoked or ingested and just how he ended up here. He pulls out his wallet and retrieves a $20 bill and receives $10 in change. He settles back into his car and holds his breath until the man walks back into the gas station.

His forehead is sweaty, and he wipes his hand across it as his heart pounds in his chest. He opens his wallet to return the $10 bill and finds a daisy pressed into one of the picture slots, nestled in front of the invitation to the garden party. Calmness comes over him as he accepts his memories of one impossible weekend in a lemon world with two lovely sisters.


End file.
